Ray Bradbury ain't dead.Ray Bradbury was -- and is -- the most influential writer in my life. He is tagged as a science fiction author but that hardly touches on his wide range of vision. He is, foremost, a poet, a painter of words, who can make you nostalgic for a boyhood you never lived, feel the madness of the constant rain on a never-was Venus, mourn the passing of the last inhabitants of Mars.I write of him in the present tense because even in his writing he denied Death. To one old woman from his boundless tales it was an inconvenience only, and I have felt the same way since the ketoacidosis tried for my life a decade ago.I show him pictured with one of his oldest friends, another Ray, special effects wizard Ray Harryhausen. Both have made magic over the decades, and I feel more a sense of loss for Mr. Harryhausen than I do for myself.Because I do not consider Mr. Bradbury gone. I have but to read a single sentence of any of his peerless -- literally peerless! tales, and his coat-of-many-colors universe returns, whole, breathless, and full of that elusive sense of wonder many try for, but he inhabited as if tailored from the whole cloth of his imagination.Ray Bradbury is not dead. His is a tide of prose only briefly ebbed, always to return, always to enchant.We are the Martians, it is our Rocket Summer anew, and we can never die.Didn't he say so?

Some of the last video footage of Ray talking about life and my blog on how he inspired me. From this blog post if you go to the Waking Universe main page you'll see the in depth story of how Ray came to my library when I was eight, set my imagination ablaze and gave me the courage to become a filmmaker that has made two films in the sci fi fantasy genre and runs a non profit dedicated to helping people use their imagination. Link below.

Probably already mentioned but frank black from the pixies was influenced by ray, which was very cool to find out! As referenced in introduction of Sam Wellers interviews with ray "listen to the echoes". The visceral, oddball pixies lyrics and music definitely tend to the darker more poignant side of things.